So here’s the idea: We post video questions for the candidates on YouTube — tagged PREZCONFERENCE — and see which ones they answer and don’t. I’ll put up the interesting ones on PrezVid (soon new blog, PrezConference). Yesterday at the VON conference, I asked folks for their questions. Here are a few. More at PrezVid and more on YouTube.

Jeff Pulver and Liz Stephans have questions about net neutrality and internet policy for all the candidates.

If you’ve found a way for politics to be more responsive to the people, you’ve done a great thing.

Thanks! Keep chipping away at the status quo.

http://kempton.ideasRevolution.com Kempton

Hi Jeff,

Interesting initiative. I hope the candidates will take the questions seriously and video reply to them. I am looking at this with keen eyes and hope some of these may rub off in Canada where our next federal election may come soon. I don’t know if the Canadian politicians are quite ready for YouTube questions yet. But may be they are?

I’ve checked out all five videos so far, and they all look great. Short and to the point. (Good sound qaulity) By the way, looks like Jeff and Liz’s video currently has a small typo in the tag. Currently it has “prezconfrerence” (..frer..) instead of ‘prezconference’ (..fere..)

I gave a couple of my pre-existing videos with that tag; see the ones from NoMoreBlatherDotCom.

The VON videos are certainly interesting. Unfortunately, the ones I looked at are a bit on the “light” and open-ended side and are likely to result in a candidate going into “replay” mode, giving their stock speech. A candidate’s position on various things can be obtained from their website or past statements, so asking someone for their stance on net neutrality will most likely simply fill up space that could be spent on more useful questions.

Let me suggest trying to ask *adversarial* questions based on *past policy-related statements and actions* and doing so in a way that will *knock a candidate off their stock spiel*.

Instead of asking about net neutrality, look up someone’s position on net neutrality and find flaws in their position. Then, either alone or with people who are familiar with asking adversarial questions, try to think up a “toughie” that would help reveal flaws in the candidate’s position or thinking processes.

“From here, Clem is ushered into the presence of â€œour President,â€ a H(W)all of Presidents-like attraction featuring the only President who pretends to take questions from the audience to which he replies with a canned non-answer (again, sound familiar?).”

“In the presence of the President, Clem seems less a loner and more of a guy from the inside (Clem refers to the President by what seems to be insider slang as â€œSpring Head.â€). Itâ€™s clear that Clem has information on how the President works and, using the speech recognition system that runs the Fair (and mistakenly hears his name as â€œUh, Clemâ€), he stops the attraction and is assumed to be a maintenance worker. Unable to get past the gatekeeper software of the President (or is it just a case of bad programming?), he causes the President to crash / shut down / go 101 (â€œthe ride is closed? But I waited 20 minutes from here. Hey, Paolo! He broke the President!).”

Don Puckett

With gas prices forever climbing under current laws, the middle class is struggling to hold onto their piece of the “American Pie”. During a conferentce for the US Attorney Generals, 27 Attorney Generals expressed their frustration over the inadequate laws in their states relating to price fixing and gouging at the gas pump. Alteritive fuels are ten years away, we need new laws now! No one is asking the right question about gasoline price fixing. I want to know, without being answers liced with platatudes as to want our legislators are going to do to bring justice to the question of gasoline price fixing?